Forest carbon program means more trees for B.C.

Shelley Jordan

June 28, 2013 - 11:28 AM

KELOWNA - The Province has planted more than 20,000 trees to kick off an innovative program that uses private-sector investment to stimulate ecosystem restoration and reforestation on Crown land, Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Steve Thomson announced today.

The B.C. Forest Carbon Partnership Program could see more than one million trees planted in the province over the next five years, helping to restore forests devastated by wildfire and the mountain pine beetle infestation while reducing B.C.'s carbon footprint.

Under the program, corporate investors pay to plant trees - which store carbon and lower greenhouse gas levels - and then receive a carbon offset credit. Over time, the program could expand to hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest.

The provincial program is being organized by the Carbon Offset Aggregation Cooperative, an independent organization set up to manage both the investments and subsequent carbon credits. The co-operative, which will use the carbon offset credits for long-term replanting and forest management activities, was selected through a competitive bid process, posted in fall 2012.

Quick Facts:
* Forest ecosystems are extremely important for the worldwide storage of carbon and account for about 40 per cent of the total carbon stored in terrestrial ecosystems.
* Approximately 60 per cent of British Columbia's land base is forest land and 95 per cent of these forest lands are public.
* Some of these forests contain the most carbon storage per hectare for any forest type in the world.

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